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Of Herulian Historical Records

First Account

    The 6th century chronicler Jordanes reports a tradition that they had been driven out of their homeland long before by the Dani, which would have located their origins in the Danish isles or southernmost Sweden. According to Procopius, they maintained close links with their kinsmen in Thule (Scandinavia). He relates that the Heruls killed their own king during their stay in the Balkans (cf. Domalde), and that they sent an emissary to Thule requesting a new king. Their request was granted, and a new king arrived with 200 young men.

Second Account

    The Heruls are first mentioned by Roman writers in the reign of Gallienus (260-268), when they accompanied the Goths ravaging the coasts of the Black Sea and the Aegean. The mixed warbands managed to sack Byzantium in 267, but their eastern contingent was virtually annihilated in the Balkans at the Battle of Naissus (Serbia) two years later, the battle that earned Marcus Aurelius Claudius his surname “Gothicus.”
    At this time, there is also a western contingent of Heruli are mentioned at the mouth of the Rhine in 289.
    By the end of the 4th century the Heruls were subjugated by the Ostrogoths. When the Ostrogothic kingdom of Ermanaric was destroyed by the Huns in about 375, the Heruls became subject to the Hunnic empire. Only after the fall of the Hunnic realm in 454, were the Heruls able to create their own kingdom in southern Slovakia at the March and Theiss rivers.
    After this kingdom was destroyed by the Langobards, however, Herulian fortunes waned. Remaining Heruls joined the Langobards and moved to Italy, and some of them sought refuge with the Gepids. Marcellinus comes recorded that the Romans (meaning the Byzantines) who allowed them to resettle depopulated “lands and cities” in Moravia, near Singidunum (Belgrade); this was done “by order of Anastasius Caesar” sometime between June 29 and August 31, 512. After one generation, this minor federate kingdom disappeared from the historical records.

Third Account

    From the end of the third century, Heruls are also mentioned as raiders in Gaul and Spain, where they are mentioned together with Saxons and Alamanni. These Heruls are usually regarded as Western Heruls; their settlements are assumed to have been somewhere at the lower Rhine.

Fourth Account

    Records indicate, however, that the Heruli served in the armies of the Byzantine emperors for a number of years, in particular in the campaigns of Belisarius, when much of the old Roman territory, including Italy, Syria, and North Africa was recaptured. Pharus was a notable Herulian commander during this period. Several thousand Heruli served in the personal guard of Belisarius throughout the campaigns. They disappear from historical record by the mid-6th century.

Fifth Account

    According to Procopius, many Heruli returned to Scandinavia and settled beside the Geats (Gautoi). The places where they are assumed to have resettled have been identified with Vermland or the provinces of Blekinge and Värend, two districts where the women had equal rights of inheritance with their brothers. Some noble Swedish families in the area also claim to be descendants of the returning Heruli. It should be noted that such identifications are not widely accepted. It has also been suggested that it was returning Heruli who first colonized Iceland.

Final Statement

    No “Heruli” are mentioned in Anglo-Saxon, Frankish or Norse chronicles, so it is assumed they were known in the north and west by another name. Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 suggested that, since the name Heruli itself is identified by many with the Anglo-Saxon eorlas (“nobles”), Old Saxon erlos (“men”), the singular of which (erilaz) frequently occurs in the earliest Northern inscriptions, that “Heruli” may have been a title of honor.
    If this is true, then this is a term pre-Norse cast system. The original system would have placed the “Earls” as a name synonymous with “Shaman”, and thus the word changing into a common word for “Nobleman” by the time of the Norse.

Refrences

Procopius in Book VI, Chapter 14 of his History of the Wars relates some brutal customs of the Eruli:

    “And they observed many customs which were not in accord with those of other men. For they were not permitted to live either when they grew old or when they fell sick, but as soon as one of them was overtaken by old age or by sickness, it became necessary for him to ask his relatives to remove him from the world as quickly as possible. And these relatives would pile up a quantity of wood to a great height and lay the man on the top of the wood, and then they would send one of the Eruli, but not a relative of the man, to his side with a dagger; for it was not lawful for a kinsman to be the slayer. And when the slayer of their relative had returned, they would straightway burn the whole pile of wood, beginning at the edges. And after the fire had ceased, they would immediately collect the bones and bury them in the earth. And when a man of the Eruli died, it was necessary for his wife, if she laid claim to virtue and wished to leave a fair name behind her, to die not long afterward beside the tomb of her husband by hanging herself with a rope. And if she did not do this, the result was that she was in ill repute thereafter and an offense to the relatives of her husband. Such were the customs observed by the Eruli in ancient times.”